"You can trust me: How people use punishment and unconditional cooperation to signal
their trustworthiness.”

Abstract:How do people advertise that they will make trustworthy interaction partners, and
what keeps their signals honest? In this talk, I will address this question by focusing
on two case studies: third-party punishment and uncalculating cooperation. For both,
I will present evidence from economic game experiments suggesting that one reason
people engage in these potentially puzzling behaviors (i.e. punish selfish behavior
even as unaffected observers, and decide whether to cooperate without carefully calculating
the costs and benefits) is to advertise their trustworthiness to observers. Then,
I will discuss game theory models that can provide ultimate level explanations for
how these signals can remain honest and reliable, despite the temptation to cheat.